The Central Bureau of Investigation may give a clean chit to independent directors of IDBI Bank in the fraud case pertaining to Rs 600-crore loan given to Aircel promoter C Sivasankaran's companies. “The CBI hasn’t found any irregularities by independent directors and criminal action not established against independent directors,” a source told Moneycontrol.

The agency had booked about 15 officials, including BSE chairman S Ravi and Aptech non-independent director Ninad Karpe. Ravi was the chairman of IDBI Bank's Audit Committee and was also on the boards of several companies and organisations. It may give relief to the independent directors on grounds that they took decision on the basis of the picture presented by the IDBI Bank management.

The scrutiny in the case has executives worried about taking up a board seat. “After the action on independent directors, professionals will be cautious about taking up the board seat as an independent director,” an independent director on the board of a bank told Moneycontrol.

The agency had conducted searches at 50 places located across 10 cities, including Delhi, Mumbai, Faridabad, Chennai, Bangalore, Belgaum, Hyderabad, Jaipur, and Pune. The search operation included raids at the residences of MS Raghvan (former CMD, IDBI Bank), BK Batra (former DMD of IDBI Bank) and Mervin O Rego (former DMD of IDBI Bank and presently serving as CMD and CEO of Syndicate Bank). As a result, 15 former and serving officers of the bank were booked.

IDBI Bank had issued a statement saying that they had given a loan to Axcel Sunshine Ltd in February 2014, which became a non performing asset in December 2015. The bank said the loan has been fully provided for and it had initiated steps to recover the dues in August 2016.

According to information received earlier, it was reported that IDBI Bank had sanctioned the loan in October 2016.